The subject invention concerns an arrangement in boxes holding cellular compartments intended for nursing plants, primarly forest tree plants or seedlings. More precisely, the invention concerns an arrangement in boxes or containers of the kind wherein the cellular compartments have a parallelepipedon configuration and wherein the cellular compartment walls are positioned in parallel with the side walls of the container and are made of paper, pasteboard, cardboard or corrugated board which is coated on one side with a plastics material.
In cultivating and nursing forest tree seedlings in cellular compartments of the kind referred to, each cellular compartment is initially filled with peat which is wetted down, whereupon the box, together with the cellular compartments therein, is allowed to pass underneath a sowing machine seeding one seed in each compartment. The boxes holding the cellular compartments are then placed side by side in tents which are climatically controlled to allow the seeds to germinate and develop into seedlings.
When the seedlings in the cellular compartments, after transplant if necessary, are ready to be set out at the intended growing place, the boxes holding the cellular compartments are transported to e.g. a clearing. As mentioned above, one of the surfaces of the walls of the cellular compartments is plastic-coated, in order to prevent the root system of the plant in one cellular compartment from penetrating into and intertwinning with the root systems of neighbouring plants in adjacent cells. At this stage, the paper layer of the walls of the cellular compartments normally is entirely disintegrated whereas the plastics layer still remains intact or at least in a continuous condition. This is a disadvantage inasmuch as it makes it necessary to break up the cellular compartment walls, row by row, in order to separate each individual seedling and the associated substratum core from the plastic before the seedlings can be bedded out. When this work is finished, all that remains of the box holding the cellular-compartments is a heap of fragments of plastics, soiled with earth and peat, which have to be removed from the clearing when the bedding-out operation is completed.
In forest cultivation thousands of plants are transplanted at each planting site and it is therefore necessary that all the steps involved, including separation of the seedlings from their nursing pots--the cellular compartments--are carried out very rapidly. This being the case, the plastics layer of the cell walls therefore easily is insufficiently removed and parts of it may be buried in the ground around the seedling root and hamper the continued growth of the seedling.
The purpose of the subject invention is to provide a device in boxes holding cellular compartments according to which the problem outlined above is solved in a convenient and rational manner, resulting in quick and complete separation of the seedlings from their associated cellular compartment or pot as well as making it possible to carry out this separation in an automated manner.